The Wildeep Daily

Hanging around #FencepostOfTheWeek

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Winter on the wane :-)

Wilson’s filmy fern - Hymenophyllum wilsonii. Slightly dry but still very lovely ^_^

iNaturalist observation 341002518

A very splendid Ricasolia virens lichen with a black, bushy thallus containing cyanobacteria and a scattering of bright green lobes with algae instead.

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Mouldering in a gloomy place #FencepostOfTheWeek

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Tripe fungus - Auricularia mesenterica. Looking like tiers of bizarrely inflated turkey tail brackets. It usually grows on elm wood.

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A bunch of springtails frolicking in the moss.

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Found a lumpy bit ^_^

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This entire fence has been pulled out of the ground and rolled up. It’s still providing fertile surfaces for some nice lichens and mosses, though. #FencepostOfTheWeek

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The underside of this lichen has some textures!

Upper surface: also textures. <3

I think this one is Umbilicaria torrefacta, growing on exposed rocks in a montane environment.

iNaturalist observation 327926461

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Clouds scudding by yesterday.

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Bright, fuzzy blobs of algae up in the crags of Beinn Bhreac.

iNaturalist observation 327805496

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A rather mossy witches’ broom <3

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A length of wall running along side the ridge of Beinn Bhreac, enclosing a moor called Caladh Leacainn.

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Spruce root plate.

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Heavy frost, and bright sun, near the top of Beinn Bhreac (454m)

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Grizzled and cracked #FencepostOfTheWeek

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One of the pixy cup lichens brightening up an old, grey stone wall.

iNaturalist observation 326750374

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Nice oaks in some afternoon, November sun.

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Found a little grove of slime mould sporangia coming up on cow dung & took a bit home to watch them develop. I think these might be Didymium squamulosum.

iNaturalist observation 326327003

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Revisiting the place where I found hazel gloves last year. They are back. :-)

Slugs and rodents seem to like them, too.

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iNaturalist observation 325975882

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A cavernous crater at dusk #FencepostOfTheWeek no 250! :0)

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A fresh clutch of burgundydrop bonnets, Mycena haematopus.

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Mystery object from the woods…

This one turned out to be an old mushroom with a tiny, white fungus growing all over it.

Tilachlidium perhaps.

iNaturalist observation 325356168

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Autumnal oaks in Glendaruel.

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These tiny, white mushrooms often seen festooned with water drops held in fuzzy hairs that are corkscrew-shaped under a microscope.

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iNaturalist observation 323183049

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Another jelly lichen from the back garden; a big, lush colony of Scytinium gelatinosum growing on my door step, where the gutter drips onto concrete.

Scytinium gelatinosum grows well on damp concrete and mortar, but I do see it out in the wild on coastal rocks, too.

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Now that’s some sparkly shit.

Ricasolia virens happens to be two of my faviourite lichens.

Here is Ricasolia virens - a small, bushy, cushion-forming jelly lichen:

But… This is also Ricasolia virens - a large, strikingly green, foliose lichen.

Both of these lichens are formed from the same species of fungus; the reason they look so different is because of the photosynthetic partner. The fungus forms a jelly lichen when it partners with a cyanobacterium, and grows broad, flat lobes when it partners with an alga.

Sometimes you can find a lichen with both photobionts on the same thallus - this can be called a photosymbiodeme. Here is a Ricasolia virens photosymbiodeme:

Related phenomena occur with Sticta canariensis:

and Ricasolia amplissima.

A slight complication: the word cephalodium can also be used to describe a lichen with algae and cyanobacteria both present, but it only allows for cases where the cyanobacteria are kept in small, subsidiary structures within or budding off of a primary algal thallus.

You can read much more about Ricasolia virens and its forms in this 2016 paper:
The cyanomorph of Ricasolia virens comb. nov. (Lobariaceae, lichenized Ascomycetes)
By
Tønsberg, Blom, Goffinet, Holtan-Hartwig & Lindblom
https://doi.org/10.5962/p.386096

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A tiger’s eye fungus. Found growing on the wall of a small cave.

iNaturalist observation 323039428

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Also found: a rather striking blue mould(?) growing in extensive patches among the bryophytes:

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iNaturalist observation 323042128